from kodiak to dutch...1

the trail around gertrude lake....

just returned last night from another great trip. seems like it lasted longer than just one week though. i started off in kodiak by myself. the hardest part of leaving is these dogs. very anxious leaving them behind. i try and get everything all set up for them but i know it's never a vacation for them. my flight to kodiak was really uneventful, which is always nice. the weather there for my first evening was wonderful. it's my second time there. it's a huge island. i hadn't realized how large until it took forever for the ferry to pass by it. i guess it's the second largest island in the us....hawaii is larger. we flew over shuyak island before landing in kodiak..we spent time there last year so i got a nice picture. hopefully i'll load that later.

i got my rental car and found my B&B. the owner, mary, was very nice but a bit scattered. she'd goofed up and thought i'd never sent a check to hold my spot. it was sitting there and luckily i still had a room. the house was right near the downtown so it was very convenient. she was the first B&B in kodiak. she got her start when a plane was weathered in i think and they needed places to put the people. that was in the 80's sometime. she had a dog so that helped me wean off my pups for the week. after i settled in i headed to abercrombie beach for beach walks and i walked around gertrude lake. fun to be back in a rain forest...but have that rare sunshine. the trees are draped with moss. from there i kept driving to the end of the road and white sands beach.above and below are at fort abercrombie state park.

the next day was very wet and windy. i drove out the chiniak road and then on the pasagshak road. it was way to wet to totally enjoy the views, but i gave it my best try. i did see a cute deer on the side of the road and some very wet horses. poor things. mostly i was just wet though. the waves were large and there were seals playing in the surf and a few die hard fishermen trying for some salmon.

the wind died down in the evening and i went for a hike in town at near point on the other side of the bridge. it's probably good for me to take a holiday from the dogs on occasion. i went to a local beach before bed as it was a nice low tide and it was supposed to be a good beach. it had a nice view of kodiak, but i wouldn't say it was a good tidepooling beach. it was called gibson cove. rocky shores work better for this. i decided to go back to fort abercrombie in the am for the -2.5 tide.

really not that exciting there either, but i love to be out on the beaches and enjoying the surf and creatures of the inner tidal zone. did see a nudibranch, but my photo didn't turn out very well. oh well. one day i'll post one from my ketchikan days. that place is a tidepooling paradise.

overall kodiak is great and i could see myself living there one day. just lots to explore, more roads, more beaches. a short flight to anchorage or a ferry to homer. kodiak has some shopping. it's not a quaint town though like ketchikan or skagway or even homer. some communities are just more functional than others.

after i went tidepooling i ran errands and eventually met up with my friends who were arriving in kodiak to catch the ferry. sandra, tanya and maria's flight was late, but they got in without issue. scott and jacqui weren't so lucky though. they were unable to even get out of cordova due to high winds and sideways rain. not sure what they did instead, but since he'd managed a room on the ferry i sent tanya running to try and get that bunk on board. they didn't get it, but only spent one night in the solarium and were able to obtain a bunk on the ferry for the second two nights. they wanted to run more errands and then we ate waited.

i'll talk more about the ferry run later...after i get a few more kodiak pictures posted. i'm really debating the plans i'd made for august to drive to deadhorse. i just had too much time off in july and need to bank bucks before i take more time off. i hate to disappoint my friend, but i really don't think it's wise. my back held up fairly well during the week, but is still sore and hurt pretty badly after a game of nertz in the dutch harbor bar saturday night. sitting in a car for a good week not really a good plan since that is the place that seems to cause the most pain for me.

little side note...turns out the pilot who rescued us when we were stranded by weather on shuyak island was the same pilot that went out to pick up timothy treadwell and instead found the carnage. willy in the beaver....he never mentioned a thing. anytime it came up in kodiak the opinion was that the guy was nuts and an idiot. most alaskans don't have a very high opinion of treadwell. it's such a small state. my taxi driver in anchorage was the father of a aide i work with in peds and the other guy who was at the B&B, his uncle came to pick him up, ate breakfast and turns out to be the father of a nurse i work with in acc.

what kodiak lacks besides general quaintness is good restaurants. they are this huge fishing place and yet, there isn't much as far as eateries. they have "henry's" which is the big game in town...i have never been impressed. thier fish and chips is horrible.

kodiak is nice for females. i turned a few heads, which i don't do that often anymore....stopped one fisherman dead in his tracks. i just laughed. they do say girls in alaska look great until they get on a plane heading south. of men in alaska, it's said.."the odds are good but the goods are odds"...of course i usually add they are odd and frequently drunk as well. in kodiak...lots of fisherman. so i guess just fishy there.